MEPs vote to ban Bisphenol-A (BPA) in food packaging

Members of the European Parliament have voted on an amendment to a report calling for a ban on the use of Bisphenol-A (BPA) in food contact materials.
The report from the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, urges the European Commission
to draw up EU wide regulations for all food packaging. It also calls on regulators to recognise that pregnant and breastfeeding women are particularly vulnerable to the effects of hazardous chemical exposures, including exposures to ‘cocktails’ of chemicals from different sources, even at low doses.
Breast Cancer UK has already responded to EU Commission proposals to lower migration levels of BPA in food contact materials and urged the Commission not only to ban BPA but to extend the ban to other bisphenols which may be used as BPA substitutes.
BPA has already been banned from use in all food packaging in France, and is banned in packaging of foods intended for children under three years old in Sweden, Denmark and Belgium.
Breast Cancer UK has written to UK MEPs asking them to support this report and the amendment calling for an EU-wide
ban on BPA.
A bill has also been introduced in the US House of Representatives looking to ban bisphenol A (BPA) from food
containers.